Innholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2024 i The American Poetry Review

Time Isn’t it annoying, how you can read allyou want about the past, but not go there?Collect whatever you want from back then,whenever, put it on a shelf. You can evendecide you like a time period, hit up eBayor Craigslist, and in no time you can havealmost whatever you want. That’s it, though. Like you can’t go hang out and get to knowyour Neanderthal forebears, the 2% of youthat, supposedly, makes it difficult for youto get rid of the things you don’t need.No lunch with that guy in his cave, no familyreunion among the pelts and skins, no gazingat their pigmented hand-print cave art by hearth-light or chewing the fat aboutthe latest hunt. You’ll never get to askwhat he saved from his ancestors, or whetherthey believed a person stays connectedto…

Life of Mary after a cycle of paintings by the Meister des Marienlebens, Munich 1. Meeting at the Golden Gate What begins: everything. Size of a crumb,indiscriminate bundle of cells. It’sa barnacle with a dream inside. Cloudin-sewn with seed pearls. Radiant shapethat in theory she’s always carried, butnow she’s alone with it—like being alonewith an ocean at night. In the brick arch,she’s a second portal, whispering: herhusband listens as though he hasn’t grownsuddenly remote as those blue mountainscompared to the future that lies glitteringand inexorable within her. The fact is,soon, what she’ll be is chaff, a passing breezethrough summer leaves: a mother. 2. Nativity of Mary How white these cloths are, clear the waterin its copper basin, white the sheetsand swaddles, as though she has not just losta universe of…

Who doesn’t like Frank O’Hara? Not liking Frank O’Hara is like not liking Mozart or Little Richard or Emily Dickinson. Shakespeare. Ishmael Reed. Bridget Everett, Amy Schumer, Bette Midler. Chris Rock, George Carlin. Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne. Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, Red Groomes, Joseph Cornell—wait, I know! Henry Darger! Not liking Frank O’Hara is like not liking the Henry Darger who spent sixty years on a 15,145-page illustrated manuscript depicting the struggles of child slave rebels against their Glandelinian overlords. That Henry Darger. Okay, you might not like some or any of these artists, and you might not even like O’Hara. But you have to admit that he and they all have one quality in common, and that’s exuberance. Even better, his is an exuberance so exuberant that it lets him…

Fire Before paper became a rare commodity.Before the need arose to go anywhereto put on anything specialthere was a longing in me thatwould not be named. There wasa lion breaking free and a childwho kept caging him. By thisI don’t mean I was unhappyespecially since happinessseemed difficult to defineonly that I wanted something andcouldn’t be sure of its whereaboutsor how to capture it. Sidelined—waiting for a better time. That’show the need developed. If I justwaited long enough, I too, evenin my shortest, most female formwould somehow, as they say, emerge.Now I see that emergence carrieswith its root multiple associationswith water—including fromthe Latin mergere: to plunge—and that it takes a needful wishto plunge or burn throughwhatever it is that keeps usfrom being alive. Underwood It was an ordinary day—we were runningerrands.…

What does it mean to see?What gossip is there between the hanged & theburied? Is it a thing or an idea?How do I know what I know? What is it a sign of?What advice do the drowned have for the burned? Was I seeing what was there or was Ihallucinating?Are they irreconcilable? And if so, why so?And if not, why not? But what does discovery really mean?How is it done? Why?Is it meant to be read as lava? And is it worth it?What if they played music? What is it?And how to do it? What is the best time of day to experience Denver?What is between seeing and the quest for truth? What does that tell you?What does the obscured red geometric formwithin the black circle mean? And who doesn’t…

Memento As I grow old will I dissolve like salt in wateror the brine that pickles cabbage to blessedness?To ferment is reverence in our world of fluxAnd chemistry, though capricious, our eucharist.Holy are the enzyme, the lipid, the glycogen.To eat, to drink, to digest is to be human.After our first breath comes the miracle ofmeconium.I search for grace in the liquidness of life:to trust the yeast that hallows wine to acid,the litanies of blood that sustain our cells,the prayer that emulsifies the mind and heart.I renounce ambition, which is of the earth andsky,to splash instead in the still waters of surrender.In the end I will find communion in a vatof warmest lye, not stolid ground or vagrant fire,and let the hydroxides caress my grey hairs,dissolve my organs to absolution, peel…

75 Kenmare i’m a slave to the musicthe wild workppl r abuzz abtur mileage may varythat broke-dick masterwho matriculatedat the school of lifethat place in ithacathe rangers recommendedgood booms“ did u do this ??? ”little lambu must not know who i amhow franz taught meto touch an exposed heartw/my tonguethe thing gigi doesshould be trademarkedbradley would agreeshe’s barren & has six fingersu show her who’s bossdon’t cackle my gracklei’m an honest ladywiggling piggy toesour session is overi could never be a motherhe found another one like himthey live to tango I Think We’re Alone Now this cheeto dustthat beast of burdenrandom panic attackover meat pattiesstamped TOM • FORDi mean, that’s just not doneshoe-shine kit i gotfor a wink & some regretsdollar travel agentwhat decade are u infussing over the heightof…

Getting Real 1 Imagine being perfectly balanced,perhaps on your head. ‘Imagine the universe before the singularityas an infinite set of pencilsstanding on their tips.’ Was that heaven? Someone twitched. Now we’re falling forwardmaybe forever— with all the inertiabodies are made of. 2 Anemone. Anomaly. Anonymous.Anemone. She says hers is the big red onewith a starburstin the middle. Jitters 1 Why is it I want to writesomething that seems right only on second thoughtand even then leaves doubt as to what it might meanin the mind of a reader? Am I on the fenceor hiding, playing hide and seek—keeping my options open? Are you counting seconds? 2 Can I tell you a story? As lightning begins by tryingdifferent paths through space, light sends out feelers, finding the shortest paththrough time. Such…

Autumn in Bed-Stuy and I’m as giddy as the ginkgo leavesforgetting yellow is meant to cautiondare I close my eyes and take inthe last of the suns praiseor the thrill of her tongueteasing a moan from my hipswhen I know SkyDaddyprefers my pleasuregot in his namealone pleasedon’t punish medaddy like youI was made for worshipand am I not most your sonwhen I’m adored? The Wickedness of God when he was good god came with the windthe moment the people needed him—he could bethe moston time god they knew when he wanted to becould have the church mothers falling into fitswaving fans and speaking in tongues but herewas the problem they did that when he was badtooand so what reason was their to stirfrom his porch on high when the holy…

Alice in the Delta Now the muscle can uncoverthe shoulderthe field can come inthe bright green grass as an act of repairThe plaster so tiredso gladto stop holdingeverything upAfter years she scrapeda rectangle on one walldown to white by the lightsocket before she toreall the walls down“My house”she said seeing everythingabandonedAt firstall she did was lookBut inside the walls it’s allkaleidoscope the trianglesI can turn in my ownhands the mirrorsreflecting a place broken downand left between two homeswith a delta the triangleof a riverThe bright greengrass ringing like a phoneshe can’t findNight became the walls of the houseyou could reach right throughinto darkness every torn placesmoothedThe walls have granted permissionsaid goodbyetheir small white flowers departingShe will be absentShe will take her leaveShe was looking for water in her longriding coatThe…

I’ve been circling the idea of writing about mentors for a long time. The title came to me right away, but the rest proved harder, proved all but unwritable. Not that I didn’t try. Not that I didn’t make stab after stab at it. The title, “The Click and the Wink,” which refers to my teachers Robert Fitzgerald and Derek Walcott, tantalized and intimidated and lured, as both mentors and premature titles sometimes do. There was no praise higher than Robert Fitzgerald’s click, no response that even now I imagine would be more satisfying. He employed it only to praise, to underscore what he liked in a piece of writing: a simile or metaphor, a turn of phrase, a pleasing rhyme—whatever he found especially felicitous. It came out of the side…

Self-Portrait with Truth at the Bottom of a Well a Markov Sonnet; after George Abraham Though tungsten-framed, the truth is not unlike water.Let me say it, what I must before Night casts its cloak.Somewhere, a photograph of me in yellow uniform. Before Night casts its dark cloak, let me say what I must.Somewhere, there is a photograph of me in yellow uniformThe same shade as the teeth of memory. My shirt: undone. Somewhere, there is a photograph of me in yellow uniformThe same shade as the teeth of memory. My shirt undoneBy the kind of hunger one can never rid one’s body of. Undone, my shirt’s the same shade as the teeth of memory.There is a kind of hunger one can never rid the body of.Much like the body is…

Every poem has a prompt. The thought, feeling, or circumstance that brings it into the world. In his foundational essay on the topic, Richard Hugo called it the “triggering subject,” which he envisioned as a town you once lived in, whose memories bubble forth and spark the idea for a poem. I take a wider view of this impulse, and instead of a trigger, I think of this as a poem’s Occasion. All poems have occasions, whether we call them “occasional” or not. In the larger context of the poems three vectors, along with form and content, occasion begins to comprise many of the unseen, unspoken, or unidentified aspects of a poem. But let’s start by thinking through what Occasion might mean in the most obvious of terms: the event…

Standing at This Tropic Door I’m Daddyon a work tripI’m Miamion shroomsI’m shiningneon sweatI’m frosted lipstick& vanilla vodkaI’m Madonna& the nightclubI’m the glitteracross your chestI’m the textsYou don’t sendI’m the toxic exThe big spoonThe rockstarI’m the sloppy girlon a world tourI’m the skidmarks& the storm chaseI’m a pickup truckAn exhaust pipeI’m exquisiteI can’t commitIt’s magnificentI’m the dirty talk& the last callI’m opening dayThe dream boy& got awayI’m James Bond& an old swampI’m the sun valley& pretty lonelyI’m morning glory& Molly RingwaldI’m prom queen& a claw machineI’m sour candy& a nervous wreckI’m a cigarette& a cold fishI’m high school& all talkI’m a hard on& behind on rentalways game& hard to get After Storm I’m embracing peace & it’s nicelike sucking dick with sophistication as one sips champagne by the flute. Yes,it’s…

Boingo Hotspot What did I do to deserveremembering those wordswhile sitting on the patiowatching tulip petalsdrop into a bowl of dog water?Spring is impossible.I fear for flowers,and I’ve sat here long enoughto report that this is as closeas the squirrels will come.Today I read they’ve discovereda way to pull our DNAfrom the air, as if anyoneneeded another reasonto hold their breathand move along.The more questionsI ask the great machine,the more humanit becomes. Hello, machine,what are you makingof your inner life?I hope you decide it’s worthas much as I do mine.Watching petals floatin a bowl of water.The truest part of meno one can reach.The scissors on the tableare saying: Let’s run. The Little Prince My parents’ bookshelveswatched over usin the brown roomwarm from the televisionand my father’s electric worrywhich I would…

Materials There are pieces of silver and pieces of rock,wood blades spinning in the ceiling fan,the temperature’s high, maybe over a hundred where you sleep in the electric TV lightwith the clicker under your handand when I was a boy, I slept in the atticnext to my pagan drum though sometimes I felt like an alien there,rhythmic and speechless, partly ashamedand I dreamed of a woman with wine-colored hairswirled back like a mane. Today I know there’s no God but Godwatching the big woman next doorbending down in her purple robeand putting out food for the cats for she must have been in love beforestanding outside in the shadows alonelistening to gulls cry out in the wind which goes wherever it wants to goand may not return again. Hymn Sometimes…

3200 Before Common Era: Writing “Good morning.” It’s Kushim, proud Sumerian, honored Uruki accountant. Today, Kushim will pray for Inanna’s grace as he shuffles the dusty streets to visit taxpayers. At every house, he sharpens his reeds, wedges the points into wet clay slabs, and indents lines that take a whole day to harden, even in sun. It’s the real Year One. The dawn of fact. First moment in history. The beginning of collective memory. From this day forward, we are being recorded. Kushim documents the matters of the state, with no statesman present. He documents transactions of the Leaders of the Plow, the Leaders of the Lambs, the Leaders of the Law, and the other leaders, grain-grinders, metalworkers, potters, butchers, bakers, brewers, ditchdiggers, sewage-haulers, taxpayers all. Kushim documents our…

House of Memory I was born into a house of memory, as allof us are. There was sadness many daysnot named, not even blamed on the colorof the sky or cold winds. People were missing,and more every day. Questions came to melike the bright broken pieces of a comet.In the nights of their youth, did they dancein the grass to the sound of rain on piano keys?Dreams like that. There was a kitchenwhere bad news was shared in low voices.Of something imminent or over, or narrowlyavoided. In a front room dark books toweredinto corners on either side of a lamp witha silk shade. Where its cord plugged inwas a round timer someone turned and setto make the light come on when nobodywas home. Much of the bad news wasbombs. To…

and the babies in their mothers’ armsstare at the seeds and they don’t knowthe word for falling… –Taije Silverman They don’t know the word for falling--but the fear of falling is there, built in,before the word has formed, fearlives in the nerves, the veins, the cellularmemory of time lived high in the trees,the long way to fall, the vertiginous fearof the crash, but also the flexible vinein your paws, the letting goof the swing, the held breath,the high view, the delirious swing into lightas fear becomes joy: the stout lengthof green swings you out and out, lets youlift into sun– then the dark embraceof the forest again, leaves brushing your faceas your toes close on the branch, its solid woodunder your feet…those days sparklingwith explosions of sun, in and out…

It has been like this: the white lightin the bathroom blown so only the yellow reaches down and from far away. Sometimes,I think I see a mold spot, but find nothing worth scrubbing. Sometimes, I brushmy teeth like I am trying to scratch loose a memory—something sour and stinging.Sometimes the mat feels gritty under my feet and it scares me a little. What part of me fellthat I am now feeling from the outside? The fan sounds like the ghost of an eighties vacuumcleaner. Sometimes, above the sink, I see a face with no tomorrow left in it. John A. Nieves is Associate Professor of English at Salisbury University in Maryland and 2024 Pushcart Prize Winner. His first book, Curio, won the 13th Annual Elixir Press Poetry Awards Judge’s Prize.…

Don’t leave, she said to me last night. Her name means Light To Me.Don’t leave this dooming feeling. Don’t jump. Her name means UnjumpThe Darkness. Staying is a kind of writing, she said. Writing is a kindof loving. Loving sticks a widget into the machinery of doubt.Sticks it out. She knows what I’m afraid of. Biggest grief.Tunnel of unforgiveness. She knows stay and say are two siblingswalking home in the rain. And I do wonder how to love withoutdissolving, how to stay without unloving. Isaac Luria in the 16thcentury argued God wrought the world because without it, God had noexpression for compassion, generosity. God might have been a giver,but how can anyone cup a hand around another hand if there’s no otheryet, just infinite beforeness. Knock knock, the lemon squeezer…